Jim Hare classic posts Archives

The Psycho and Soma of Travel

I just completed an East Coast swing, Walt, which included not only a
moving reunion with an old friend, but seven airports and 21 hours
travel time. I'm still mulling the mind/body experience of it all.

It is most remarkable to be your own travel agent on the Internet,
including printing your own boarding pass. I'm sure this is news
only to an infrequent flyer like me.

You hear a lot of complaining about travel, and maybe I was just
lucky, but except for having to be extracted and unfolded from my
seat by a team of onboard airport staff, I saw many improvements in
the process that I won't go into now, like, for instance, I brought my
own food on the plane and didn't have to eat their dreck.

Did I mentioned losing a boarding pass?  It is a long story, because it
means including my mental processes, in order to fill out what is
otherwise a very short story.  This little tale needs a little detail if it
is to convey the interior drama behind what was an airport moment
so ordinary that not one person among the throng of milling
travelers would have noticed.  Beneath my calm exterior, it was a
crisis of upsetting proportions.  

Losing a boarding pass can be followed by a chain of events with
unknown possible detours, none that are particularly pleasurable,
and some, both imaginary and real, might be downright annoying
and stressful, partly because all the events would be happening as
the boarding time gets closer, and the clocks seem to speed up.

My panic was immediate when a quick frisk of all my pockets failed
to find the boarding pass.  The emergency alarms went off in my
head, and released heart quickening chemicals.  My mind
immediately made a trip to the "Oh S***" department, and then
straight to the Ministry of "Now I'm Screwed".  But if you had been
there, what you would have seen was just some guy making a calm
search of his two bags.  No big deal.

What you would not have seen was his mind automatically
calculating the number of minutes before departure time, and
planning who to ask first for directions to the "Schmuck That Lost
His Pass" desk.  And there would not have been a line at that desk
either, just me, standing under the sign that says "Boobs Line Up
Here".  No queueing chains are needed for just us few schmucks.

But my parents, God rest their souls, would have been proud of me.  I
kept my cool.  I knew what I had to do before going the "official"
route.  A part of my mind had been working as independently as a
Roomba while the rest of me panicked and fiddled around in search
of the pass.  The "mystery solving" part of my brain had narrowed it
down to one possibility, the Men's Room. 

On my table at the snack bar, the tuna sandwich was newly opened,
and a napkin was spread out in preparation for a feast.  My jacket
was neatly hung on the back of the chair, and my two bags were still
carefully arranged on the spare chair, even after being
rummaged.  From this scene, you can get the idea that I was
prepared to sit peacefully and have a sandwich and enjoy the
passersby till I boarded.  It was to be the fruit of my perfect
planning, that is, before my fingers went looking for the boarding
pass.  It must have been a memo from the "Never Trust Anything
When You Travel" department that started my fingers on their
search.  Such things are automatic in the minds of the wary.

Even greater than the fear of missing the plane or making a fool of
myself, was the disappointment of not being able to sit and eat that
sandwich.  I had a brief "f*** it" moment.  But the angels of my wiser
nature prevailed.

First thought:  Turn to the counter clerk and say, " Would you watch
my stuff?" and then bound to the Men's Room down the hall.  Bad
idea to put all my stuff at risk.

Next idea:  Have her watch my other stuff and take the computer
with me...oh and the sandwich too.  Uh uh, stuff in the bag I wouldn't
want to lose either.  Can't leave anything.

Next idea:  Grab bags and coat in my arms and waddle down there,
dropping stuff from pockets and compartments along the way,
bending to pick up things with more falling out every time I bend
over.  To do that I would have needed a "Boob" logo on my baseball
cap.  Bad idea.

Final idea:  The mature thing to do...I take a yoga breath, invoke
harmony, and calmly repack the tuna sandwich and put the cap back
on my champagne-priced split of airport bottled water, and then
carry them over to the counter and ask to have them held.  Then go
back to the table and began to reassemble my airport "go from one
place to the other" uniform of jacket and bags slung neatly over the
shoulders, shove the chairs back in, and walk leisurely out and down
to the Men's Room.  Very dignified.

It is not surprising that I found the boarding pass there on the floor
in the stall where I had formerly sat taking care of business and
thinking up Republican senator jokes.  Who would try to steal a
boarding pass in these days of electronic check-in audit trails
anyway?  But it could have been picked up by a do-gooder and
turned in...and you know where that leads.  That's right...back to the
Schmuck desk under the Boob sign.  They would probably have
handed it back to me in a sanitary ziplock baggie, holding their nose,
with a pinched, "peeuw" look on their face.  

So I was lucky to find the pass...but it was more than luck because I
always use the handicapped stalls in airports, which are probably
less used, so there was less chance for someone to find it, but I don't
know that for sure.  It is probably a survey I will not conduct any
time soon.  Anyway, I use that stall because there is more room in
handicapped to set your bags down, and the seat is farther from the
divider, so the Republican senators can't nudge your shoe. 

So, that's the tale.  I could have just said, "...dropped my boarding
pass in the bathroom, but I found it."  You can see how much more
there can be to a story than the simple fact, and the short version
would not have been as much fun for me to tell.